


When words fail in the spaces of silence and words unsaid

by jarofactonbell



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Winter Olympics AU, Winter Sports, featuring kim yugyeom and momo hirai, featuring me screaming throughout the writing process, hahahahaha what is happening, honestly minho being salty is me, i swear it was meant to be short, indulgent? yes, minho is Bitter and Salty, minho is who i want to be but at best i am woojin screaming, minor seungbin, much skating, salt salt salt everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/jarofactonbell
Summary: Felix’s eyes have this little glint when Minho asks for Jisung’s number, but he never divulge that line of thought he had. Minho’s first instinct when he came into possession of the number was to simultaneously challenge Jisung to a duel on the ice and also to thank him for the wonderful tune of depression and death of Hellevator.Jisung calls him right after but he doesn’t say much, just laughs over the phone, at his messages or him, Minho doesn’t know, but it’s a good sound, Jisung laughing. He’d like to hear it more.or winter olympics, minsung, minho being salty on the ice and gays gays gays everywhere





	When words fail in the spaces of silence and words unsaid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Iris_Duncan_72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Duncan_72/gifts).



> This week on Why Is jarofactonbell Writing Longer And Weirder Fics, I present to you, the very overdue, long long overdue, YOI!AU but also Winter Olympics AU. Yes. I went a bit overboard. But take it. It's self-indulgent and terribly long and full of mistakes but editing is a job for More Awake Jenny. Just Finished Writing A 10k Fic Jenny is going to bed.
> 
> I would like to say that I wanted minsung to be the main ship but you'll just see so much hyunlix that you don't know who is the main ship
> 
> Also if you see typos please remember I'm in a group chat called stray typous. Like, literally, that is me and my writing career in two words
> 
> Look everybody Iris made a moodboard for me, this is the kind of friendship that I have now:  
> [In case you need a visual accompaniment here it is it's so pretty](https://twitter.com/iris_d_72/status/988596523343605760)  
> 

It is a truth universally accepted, within the confines of the training area this end of Asia anyways, that when Lee Minho plays, he plays to win.

And to win at any further competition in the future, he needs to spin more and land properly. Which he isn’t doing, not with his limited time on the ice and too much time spent in dance studios that aren’t really suitable surfaces to wear skates on. He’s desperate. Woojin had to stop him way too many times from slipping on his skates on carpet and just skating on linoleum floors. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He needs a quad flip before Pyongchang happens and the stupid overfunded speed skaters hogging the ice all the time doesn’t help his winning chances, favourite son of Korea or not. Ice skating is a lowly funded sport in the nation of South Korea and everybody who isn’t Yuna Kim is screwed. Screwed.

Felix tries to sympathise, but he does halfpipe snowboarding. There may be limited number of snowboarding sports, but they exist and all they need are those training pipes and they’re set. He cannot understand the sheer desperation one faces when they even contemplate putting on knife-sharp shoes on wooden floors.

 “Don’t you have your old programs? There’s one that you won gold at in NHK.  Can’t you just revise that? Emulate the sure victory into a soon-to-be victory?” The blonde pointed out, clipping on his helmet.

“NHK’s program was cute, but,” he made a honking cow sound, “I need a quad flip to secure a gold,” he dug his boots into the snow, pouting. The morning sun did nothing to even out the salt level rising in his already small self. At some point it’ll melt the ice under his skates and he’d trip and break his face.

“What about other elements? You already have your set combos and three quads. Hanyu doesn’t solely focus on the quads, but more on execution. Be like him. Plus, your transition is very good, I don’t think changing your Lutzes to a flip would be a wise gamble.” Felix clipped on the goggles and made vague hand signs at him. _Go away_ , it could’ve been. _Go on without me. Figure out your issues and leave me to win a medal by myself._

Minho kicked the pile of snow in frustration and stalked back inside. Korean winters are harsh on its athletes.

 

Because he’s bitter, he hogs the skating rink until his coach Woojin comes and kicks him out so the speed skaters and the hockey players can use the space. The ice dancers had gone off to a different rink, smaller. They have a rotation roster somewhere in their group chat but honestly, it’s every person for themselves. There are two rinks at the ice house. Minho is allowed one for like two hours every day, a disgraceful allocation to someone who is honestly trying his best to win a medal for this goddamn nation. As always, he claims monopoly over one simply because it’s bigger and everybody loves to use it, but this is Minho Time and Woojin would have to scrape his dead battered body off the ice with his skates to get rid of him.

Felix indulges him and gives rather insightful comments in an ice bath and dangerously balancing his phone within close proximity of water while Minho whizzes around the rink clutching his own phone and screaming.

Woojin warned him about the dangers of skating with one arm because the overall balance is perturbed but Minho needs Felix’s input because Felix not only skis, trains in gymnastics, can outrun plenty of athletes and gives good feedback on form and balance, he also dances and he’s good with shooting down Minho’s stupid ideas.

“Just two more minutes!” He shrieks as he circles around the rink, barrelling at a couple of miles per hour. “I nearly got this.”

“You will nearly grasp the gentle hold of death if you don’t put that phone away!” Woojin is half on the rail and threatening to topple onto the ice. Knowing him and his prowess over the arctic element he’ll probably levitate. Minho slows down, still babbling to Felix about this track that he got from a friend of his and it’s such a complete compartmentalisation of who Lee Minho, Korea’s favourite skating son is – so complete and unabridged of his self that he was determined to attempt 4 quads instead of his usual 3.

Bad choice. Or “Yeh fucking stupid, mate” if Felix was to comment, half frozen in his ice bath.

Jokes on Felix because he already got the axel, toe loop and Salchow down pat. He’s going to skate brilliantly and snatch the shiny medal from Hanyu’s pretty grip.

“Why’s it all instrumental?” Felix grouses, grunting as he tries to get up one-handedly, “I am not made for sports,” he wheezes.

“Because it was this way when Chris gave it to me,” he slows down to a stop in the middle of the rink, skates skidding against ice floor, “said he got some melodies down but for now, this is the best I can take.”

“Doesn’t he have other songs? Use those.”

“They’re cute but like,” he sucks on the back of his teeth, gloves all gross and sticky onto his palms, “not edgy enough.”

“And…this one is?”

“Yes, of course, have your ears not been blessed? No, don’t answer that,” he turns the volume to maximum, “now be blessed.”

Elevator Take 7 blasts in the rink and a hockey girl startles when she walks past the rink. She waves and shuffles her duffle bag of hockeyly goodness and soldiers to the other rink, where the female team had already assembled. They know of his grudge, but the hockey teams face even less recognition than figure skating because they don’t have a Yuna Kim for hockey, so they’re forever at the mercy of Minho and the speed skaters. He feels marginally bad. Maybe he should get off. The more medals they win the more they can build more rinks in Seoul. The distance between this one and the one the ice dancers are in is a disgrace. Too bloody far.

Plus this rink operates on the principle of first in first serve. Normally the speed skaters evade that by pressuring Minho off because there is him, the Seoul rep, training here, at Seoul, while the Gwangju and Mokpo ones train at their hometowns, peacefully hidden away from rink dramas. But the hockey players have heavy wooden sticks, helmets and they’re armed. They can use the tactic of crowd intimidation and force the speed skaters onto the smaller rink. He trusts this to play out. He trusts it to.

He does a weird interpretative dance and the captain of the female team looks close to tears, telling the girls to assemble and move their gear.

“Now can you get off the ice?” Woojin stresses, half his body bent over the railing.

“A bit more and you can touch the freezing abyss!” He calls out, hand cupped around his mouth. Woojin lets out a strangled yelp.

“Well?” He turns back to Felix who hasn’t commented a word throughout the whole 3 minutes. “Hello? Have you drowned?”

“It’s very impactful. You’re going to stand out significantly on the ice if you execute things right, which I’m sure you got it all down,” Felix speaks over Minho’s objection of ‘I have nothing down’, “what I think you need though is some melodies. I’ll find someone. You can focus on stabilising your quad flip landing.”

“Are you throwing shade at me, Lee-”

“Goodbye Minnie, send me the track, I’ll find a guy.”

Then he hangs up. The hockey people are all lounging outside the glass, Chris now here and tapping on it, making faces at him. Rude.

“Can we come on?” Jeongin pokes his head in. Bless the baby. He doesn’t even play a winter sport, yet here he is. “I want to see Chan skate,” he vibrates on the spot.

Minho is a bitch, but not that much of a bitch. He skates off, but not before he gives Chris a scathing look and ruffles Jeongin’s hair.

Woojin slides off the handrail fluidly and doesn’t lecture Minho straight off the bat, only taps his chin.

“Your quad flip is a joke,” he comments, “don’t attempt it too much. Keep the quads to a reasonable amount. Your strength lies in-”

“Axel spins, quad toe and Salchow,” Minho chimes in. Woojin looks oddly proud. “And I’m a dancer.”

“Thus you should dance,” Woojin concludes, “but you overstayed your practice, so now I’m making you run, punk. Eat lactic acid, rat.”

 

 

 “Wanna see some figure skating?” Hyunjin asks one day, back from skiing, face stupidly attractive after a whole day out in the snow and dropping down hills at rocket velocity, hair messy but this is the kinda thing sports magazines are into. The amount of sponsorships and modelling contracts Hyunjin keeps on the sidelines is slightly edging towards demonic level. No wonder he’s so rich. Felix wears Emporio Armani watches. Hyunjin is literally sugar daddy level rich, except Felix mostly breathes and Hyunjin goes HAVE ANOTHER FUR COAT CUSTOM MADE FROM THE ROLLING FIELDS OF SWITZERLAND VALUED AT 2000 EUROS.

So yeah that’s their dynamic.

Jisung leans back a bit, hissing from the brightness of beauty and perfection, and is only baited back out with chocolate cakes Hyunjin’s mum bought.

“I would but I’m tired. Felix not back yet?” He takes one cake and hugs it to his chest. Hyunjin shrugs off his heavy jacket with an audible groan, shaking sweaty hair strands out of his eyes.

“Have to buy a board from Sweden. He landed weirdly on this one.” At Jisung’s wide eyes. “He’s fine. He didn’t fall.”

“I’ll call him later and nag him to stop. You good for the rest of the day?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just wanted to show you this guy. He was phenomenal in Sochi but ended up 1 point shy of a bronze. Amazing footwork.”

“Probably fucked up somewhere,” he yawns, “go take a bath. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Hyunjin hums and waddles to their shared bathroom. Changbin will be back and he’ll scream a lot. How can one disappear from him?

(One cannot, but one can call one Kim Seungmin en route from his baseball practice to transform and terrorise Changbin into one terrifyingly docile kitten-human hybrid for the mogul snowboarder to get some much-needed rest. Jisung feels a bit bad for Seungmin, having to travel, but he remembers the summer Olympics are in two years and Seungmin no doubt will understand the rest any sort of athlete require. Besides, it’s not like he’ll complain when he gets to see Changbin. At the rate that Changbin moan about not being able to see Seungmin one would assume he’d call his crush, person of fancy, best friend, whoever Seungmin is to him, to be by his side in these trying times, be his moral support, call to check up on him, but he had not and outsiders had to intervene.

Changbin looks a bit offended, but his expression is also laced with gratefulness as Hyunjin opens the door and Seungmin strolls in like he lives there all the time, beaming his 5 million watt LED-sourced solar energy harvested environmentally-friendly smile. Hyunjin flees. Jisung hides. Everything can be ordained by Seungmin.)

But back to skating. He’s staring at the spot on the floor that Hyunjin loitered on, chewing on his tongue. Figure skating is cool. It’s great. He doesn’t hate it. It’s just not a sport he’d like to participate in because he can’t handle all the jumps and spins. He reveres the guys and girls throwing themselves on the ice and float on it and look majestic while doing so, in no protective gear, in clothes that are too thin to wear on ice. Beautiful dancing lines are in display where his ass is the most memorable body part spectators watching speed skating will see, which is fine. He has a great Ass. It draws less attention to his face which is stuck in a permanent PLEASE HELP I’M HURTLING DOWN SLIPPERY FLOOR AT CAR VELOCITY ARGH! DEATH BE PRESENT! He’s such a coward, yet he’s training for a sport that requires Jisung a good couple of hours to pep talk himself onto stepping onto the ice with his skates when he was 7. Jisung’s mother dropped a plate or five when he declared that he wanted to become a speed skater, at the young age of 6. 6 was clearly too young to decide on a career spanning until at least 30, professionally even. But Jisung was determined and this took him away from carving fingernails into his forearms so his mother reluctantly sent him to the nearest ice rink on rental skates and watched anxiously on the sidelines as he shakily skedaddled on the ice and tripping and bruising on too many different places for her heart not to weep. But the next morning she found him in front of her room with ointment dried from the night before, holding out her car keys.

“Can you drive me?” He asked. Didn’t want no as an answer.

“Okay, sweetheart, just a second,” she conceded. “Mama is coming with you.”

 

Mama accompanied him to his first skating lesson to his first skating competition, his first national medals, international youth games. She couldn’t skip work to see his Olympic qualifiers, but made it in time to catch the last skate of the day, his, and sobbed outside the smoking area as he whizzed past the finish line with an easy first place.

He was 13. Too young to qualify. “You’ll have 2018,” the judges told him. Korea won no gold medal in the men’s speed skating events that year. Jisung was at the rink, practicing.

“I’ll get a medal, for sure,” he promised the ice and his mother.

 

Someone kicks down his door around 8. He startles awake and nearly rolls off the bed, only for the light to switch back on and a Lee Felix standing in his doorway.

“I need help,” he solemnly informs Jisung.

He just woke up. He’s not very good with processing information.

“But you snowboard and I skate,” he explains, confusion thick in his brain, “we’re from two different worlds.”

“Calm down, Romeo, I’m not eloping with you,” Felix rolls his eyes.

Jisung is awake in an instant.

“Why would I elope with my best mate’s husband, you stupid poodle? I’m not a homewrecker, stop slandering me,” he wails and throws pillows at Felix who sidesteps them easily.

“Great, cool, now onto more serious things. I need help. You used to do music. Now help me,” Felix pulls out his phone. “I need some melodies, rap, whatever, on this piece. The edgier the better. Bonus point if you scream at some point.”

“Okay but why? Do I get anything out of it?” He fumbles with the passcode and unlocks it. “Nationals are coming. I imagine you want to qualify this time around.”

Felix’s stance becomes rigid but relaxes as he sees the horror of what Jisung and his stupid just-woke-up brain did.

“I’m so sor-” he begins and Felix cuts him off, waving his hand dismissively.

“Better you than anyone else. It’s healing, but I don’t know if I can qualify,” he closes his eyes, “but I’ll try anyways. At least I know I tried.”

“Don’t overexert yourself. Push, but not too much,” Jisung gets up, “don’t fall this time around.”

“I’ll try, but honestly I don’t know. I came close to falling today. Got a bruise up my back,” Felix lets him trace him by the inside of his wrist, their matching friendship tattoos after Felix’s first gold medal game was attained. “So I don’t know. If I don’t get to snowboard, then at least I got a figure skater on the podium in my place.”

“Don’t say that,” Jisung wants to cry. Last time it was this too. Felix qualified, practiced incessantly from dawn to midnight, tiring himself out with pure exhaustion. He broke down several times with his splintered boards, shattering about two at the pipes and nearly broke another one during qualifiers. The stress was too much. He had a weird start and turned oddly in the air, with fantastic spins and trajectory but awkward landing, sprawling on the ice, finishing at seventh. His friends didn’t hear or see him except for Hyunjin until two months later when he was released from rehab from the hospital, leg still weak.

And here he is standing on both feet, snowboarding like everything depends on his feet. Jisung wants to lend him strength, wants to look after him, but he can barely get his body to go faster and faster, stuck by gravity.

“Will this make you less stressed?” Jisung whispers.

“Quite possibly,” Felix clutches his fingers, “you would be doing my caretaker a huge favour.”

“Oh that one,” the one that shares an apartment with Felix at the indignation of Hyunjin, who reserved boyfriend privileges and sharing room rights with Felix. But this one is a Good Person, according to Felix who just has a knack of crowding and drawing in good people with his pure self. “The…figure skater?”

“Yeah, him,” there’s a faint smile, “he’s going to win a medal, I can sense it.”

“Are you, like, his lucky charm, his fairy godfather, the enabler to his success, what,” Jisung jostles their joined hands, “sounds like a lot of effort. Almost on par with me and I’m your mate.”

“Will you do it?” Felix lets go, stepping back, eyes big.

Jisung can’t say no. He finds the file ‘edgy emo free skate’ at the directives of Felix and sends it to his number. Hyunjin is calling for Felix to come back from outside the hallway.

He makes a ‘you owe me loads’ gesture as Felix beams, crushing him in a hug. They swing side to side, standing on tip toes then heels.

“Thanks, Pete,” Felix whispers into Jisung’s hair.

“Ew, Bok Choy, stop,” he shoves Felix.

 

“Kim Woojin is Satan’s son and I have a PowerPoint to defend my beliefs,” Minho drops onto Felix bodily as soon as the blonde yanks the door open at Minho’s ‘can you open the door I can’t feel my ankles’ over the phone.

“You’re an idiot,” Felix informs him, half supporting him and half dragging, “and we are not going through your fifth PowerPoint in this week. That’s ridiculous.”

Felix throws him onto the rug in front of the door and shuts it, ice and snow blowing into the front door.

“For someone who always nag me about keeping myself in check, you’re surprisingly lax when it comes to your own health. Breaking in at rinks after 11pm. It’s like 2 in the morning.” Felix complains as he peels shoes and socks off Minho and he’s not even awake from the freezing cold to ‘what’ the kid, getting his senses back when Felix pokes a purplish bruise on his calf.

“Can ice skaters get bruises on their calves?” He asks, very serious.

Felix flicks his bruise and the pain travels from there to his head that he doesn’t have enough words in him to squeak out an ‘ow’.

“Eep,” Minho lets out, “oh mother of Buddha, that hurts, Lix, why?”

“So you remember this pain and not get hurt next time,” he replies nonchalantly, zipping his jacket off him, “up, go, come on, you always stress me out so much.”

“How was the purchase?” He asks and receives a slammed door to his face.

“Go change,” is the reply, “and it went okay. I got laughed at again, but that’s nothing new. It’ll arrive by next week.”

“That’s good,” his jumper muffles his voice, “now lemme out, I have to rant.”

Felix moves to let the door swing out, arms crossed over his chest. Minho squints, assessing his posture. It seems stable and normal. No limping. He saw Felix stretching last night and supervised him through his practice. Things are not heading to a wrong direction at Hyunjin’s slope skiing speed. Hopefully. Minho will personally bleed himself dry before that can happen.

At Minho’s roving eyes, Felix mellows down. He’s all exhaustion and snowy slopes under their failing bulbs. Minho touches the back of his hand to the child’s cheek, letting it rest there.

“Never mind my rant. You ate already, yeah?”

A nod. He retracts his hand.

“You look like you got a dog for no good reason except your boyfriend is rich from all of his Giorgio Armani modelling contracts,” he observes. Felix lets him see an impish smile, lifting his eyebrows like ‘maybe’.

“Come sit,” Felix takes his hand, “I got something for you.”

 

 

Jisung refuses to touch or hear or even go near his phone on the first day of receiving the music. It’s too much work. He’s a budding athlete on his ascent to stardom. He has got no time.

Felix doesn’t check in on him too much, preferring to stay with Hyunjin or go on romantic long walks in the freezing abyss that is Seoul in winter at 8pm. He’s not too sure why that is considered cute or domestically adorable, but Hyunjin insists and Felix is too fond of him to deny.

The phone stares at him, incriminating. God, it’s not like he asked to help. He was coerced into saying ‘yes’. There was no free will or consent.

“Leave me alone,” he stabs a finger at his black screen like it’s capable of accepting criticism on storing music. “I’ll do it soon.”

He caves in about day three, because Felix had just passed by, wearing Jisung’s ridiculous winter coat and looking way too small in it, big doe eyes blinking, music probably forgotten but Jisung is notoriously easy to guilt-trip. He crumbles and goes to play the song, expecting some punk rock rubbish. No offence to Chan or anything, but punk rock is –

For heaven’s sake this is good. This is great. There are possibilities for sentimental lyrics and dynamic rapping. It’s eleven. He should not be up this way. How is he up this late? Why is he still writing?

 _Do it for Felix_ , his brain whispers.

 _Write good music as compensation for being a lazy ass bitch and lowkey salty that you had to write music even though you really love it_ , the morally upright part of his brain reminds him in case he forget.

“Fine, fine,” he glances at the digital watch. “It’ll take a few minutes.”

It takes an entire night. And he’s in pain the whole time. His ankles have not been managed properly. Or at all.

Jisung is half-awake and delirious from the cold and the mind-numbing pain of his ankles that he just powers through the lyrics and births some high-quality rap and falls instantly asleep. No more. The rest he’ll do in the morning.

The next morning he wakes up and nearly rolls off the bed because he forgets ankles take ages to heal and the ages span for days, not hours. Tapping for his phone, he finds and phones Chan and asks to use his recording studio.

“Picking up music again?” Chan breathes, groaning as he stretches.

“Something like that,” Jisung mumbles, “doing a favour for a friend.”

“Well it’s always open to you. Use it as you will.”

Hellevator is then born. He’s not sure if it’s too edgy for the friend, but the lyrics just flow well together and everything seems to fall into place.

“Oi Felix,” he sends the text, “it’s done. Super edgy. Forwarding you the thing now.”

Then as a reminder, he texts, “Send me the video of him skating to it. I want to see.”

 

 

Minho listens, in awe. Debates on escape routes so he can run to the rink and skate to a higher ascent choreography because he can see the moves clearly now, can envision his success and his ascent up the podium where he is crowned Most Glorious Figure Skater with Yuzuru Hanyu clapping his hands in utter adoration.

“Lee, Felix, my child,” he breathes, clutching his phone to his chest, “this is a _masterpiece_.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Felix smiles, impish, perhaps proud. Ah. A close friend then. Minho lets his eyes drift to the barely concealed tattoo on Felix’s left wrist. Probably that one. Peter rabbit some guy.

“I will skate brilliantly to it,” he promises, “and not hurt myself while doing so.”

“Promise me that. Promise me you’ll be able to walk me to Pyongchang,” Felix stares at him. He lets his phone drops to his lap and catches Felix’s hands, trembling now and then. They hold hands, sitting toes to toes, breathing the same air under the shallow lamp light.

“I promise.”

 

 

Minho’s mother told him he can do anything if he wants and he can do anything well given spite and pettiness. It’s true. He studied hard and received a scholarship to a dance academy after his aunt told him ‘boys don’t dance, that’s an insult to masculinity’. His audition piece was a contemporary dance and to the crooning sultriness of Birdy about people being angels. He picked up ice skating around 13, to release pent up stress, perhaps to truly spite the group of hiphop dancers at the school who scoffed at the idea of dancing. _On ice_ , they snickered, _aren’t you a man? Aren’t you too old?_

Lee Minho became the youth’s representative of Seoul two months after with his maddening interpretation of A time for us, the original soundtrack for Baz Lehrman’s Romeo and Juliet. He decided then that he liked the sport just a tad more than dancing and he attained enough hate from those around him telling him to quit at any time now to power him through to the rest of his life. He didn’t renounce his scholarship, but maintained his education, occasionally leaving for competitions until the principal decided that his lack of attendance was deplorable and this problem needed to be fixed.

He talked to his mother, told her about him leaving for competitions. She only asked to see the principal.

“Make a promise to me,” she told him after she signed the indefinite school transfer paperwork, “finish high school. Then go your own way. Only miss school for competitions, not training sessions. Promise me you won’t get hurt.”

“I promise you,” he swore.

 

He broke that promise after he bruised his ankle purple and yellow before the Youth World Championships. Cried his eyes swollen and red when he could barely walk the next day. His mother didn’t say anything, rubbed ointment onto his ankles and feet and told him to rest.

Minho’s mother told him that he can do anything and he will surpass human capabilities to achieve perfection, because an artist strives for the Perfect Form and willingly tread the shadow world and the spirit world to find that form.

“But you’re only human,” she reminded him, “your body cannot do certain things. Remember that.”

He danced to Ave Maria and became the youngest Korean male figure skater to skate in the Olympics.

 

He met Felix then, both too young and fresh-faced, thinking they could take over the world. But Felix was too young to control his spins and Minho was too naïve to think that he had seen all of the world, and they crashed and burnt. Ankles and backs broken, like they had been yanked violently from their ascent to the heaven. Foolish giants thinking rocks could be stable staircases to Olympus.

Minho’s ankles were fixable. A few days of not walking, spent inside the infirmary of the Sochi Ice Sports centre. The minute he could leave, he ran. Ran away from the thoughts that he failed. That his mother and his relatives had watched him miss that bronze medal by just a meagre point, because he did not practice well in his short program, that he thought he could land a quad flip again given no practice, that he was cocky, too arrogant, a fifteen-year-old among much older competitors. A child with a big head.

Tears fell on the snow. He had ran out without shoes.

 

He wandered a lot afterwards, after the nurses hounded him about taking care of his ankle. Saw those in similar situations. How they were all stuck, unable to move forward. All losers.

He saw Felix making paper cranes with a trembling right hand on the eighth day, passing by the Australian side of the infirmary. There were cranes of all sizes, all littering the small bed and tipping off in a sizeable pile on the floor, as Felix furiously produced them, eyebrows scrunched up, lips chapped and gnawed purple.

Minho could tell the Japanese athletes had something to do with this. He saw Shoma the other day, passing around cranes. _The more you make, the luckier you are._

What rubbish. Unfounded beliefs didn’t sit well with him. _The harder you work, that’s when you get luckier._

Regardless, he stood, watching. Saw the trembling and the cast on the leg. A hint of a back brace. Left, but asked for origami papers.

Came the next morning with a pile of cranes he spent all night making. With every crane he wished the boy a recovery. Apparently they need a thousand. Minho only got about a hundred or so.

“How much have you got?” He let the cranes fell on the boy’s lap and tentatively sat on the far end of his blanket, free of all the cranes. The boy looked at him, lips pressed tight together and wrist shaking. He was still in shock. Probably a bad landing.

“You need 1000 right? I’m helping,” Minho decided for the boy, taking paper out of his grip. “Australia’s…?”

“Felix,” the boy croaked. Minho had to crane his head in close to listen. “You’re Lee Minho.”

Minho didn’t ask how he know, how he spoke it with a kind of reverence Minho didn’t deserve. He aggressively crushed the spine of his next crane and regarded it with contempt in comparison with Felix’s tender folding, despite the wrist.

“You get angry around the first two hundred or so, then you’re just drained from it all afterwards,” Felix told him in Korean. Minho wasn’t that surprised. America had a Japanese skater. “That’s why it helps. It’s not like 1,000 cranes will bring any luck for anyone. I don’t believe it anyway.”

Rubbish. Folding cranes and basing their hopes on flimsy ass paper squares didn’t sit tight with him. He refused to let paper ordain his fate or Felix’s.

The next day Minho brought in books about physiotherapy. They were on 400 cranes or so. He would fight the fate with heavy ass textbooks on rehab.

He paused at the door. Peered inside.

Felix was sitting next to someone, his hands, trembling wrist and all, nestled between the palms of the other person, their heads bent together.

There was a mixture of Korean and English, all vague air whispers to him, but he could hear the adoration, could see it from the way the other boy’s head dipped so that their eyes aligned and Felix lit up in a soft rose shade rather than the translucent blue he’s been sporting.

“Will you be okay?” Felix asked as the boy rose to leave, shaking wet hair out of his eyes.

“I’ll win for both of us. Trust me,” he pressed a thumb in between Felix’s eyebrow, imprinting the shape there, “take care, go rest. I’ll come back with a medal.”

He turned to leave and saw Minho outside, carefully reading the books and noting out different exercises for weak wrists, because Minho gets bored easily and as much as he enjoyed watching a couple consoling each other, he’s here to rehabilitate an athlete and steal him for Korea because he’s good, the sources say he’s good, the officials say he’s good, it’s just one bad landing that need adjustments.

Curable. Minho had always been a miracle worker. He would persist through this.

“So Felix,” he slammed down the books on the bed, “how are your hips nowadays?”

 

They got up to 600 cranes when Felix stopped trembling and they worked through 3 books of physio, constantly monitoring Felix’s progress. Minho joked that if he wasn’t so good at dancing, he might take up physiotherapy as an aside. To keep him entertained from too many spins on the ice.

Hyunjin came back, as promised, although he got no medals, he came close to it and they all had to part, but Minho slipped Felix Woojin’s number to call once he’s back in Australia.

“Come to Korea. Train with me,” at Felix’s silence, “we have legit snow and ice training centres, plus you’ll get to see Hyunjin more.”

“I see Hyunjin twice a year,” Felix argued, reddening. Minho wouldn’t budge.

“Make that twice a day if you come to Seoul. Think about it. Keep the number.”

Felix’s plane was about to be open for boarding. The boy bowed quickly to Minho and ran with his bag, chanting his seat number, Woojin’s number in his front pocket.

Normally people pray, but Minho was sure of Felix returning that he turned his back, sure of it.

 A week later, he got a call. Well, Woojin did. Minho was going over his old programs with Woojin and they were arguing over him attempting a quad flip again when the phone went off and Woojin just knew it was for Minho.

“Hello?”

“I’m at Incheon. How long will you take to pick me up? I’ve got a back brace on me.”

“Catch a taxi. I’ll sport the fee. If you stand for long, your back will cave in on itself. Flag one down. Your Korean is so good, you jerk, why are you not a Korean athlete to win honour and glory to the homeland?”

“I’ll see you later,” Felix laughed, quiet, “hyung.”

It all fell into pieces after.

Felix spent a month or so with Minho to recover from his injuries and by the time they’re both back on their feet, Minho had a new mindset and Felix’s bones were set by steel.

400 cranes bring a friend. 600 cranes bring steel bones. 1000 cranes bring victory.

Felix got a matching tattoo with Minho on their mutual first win after the Olympics, biting medals on their respective podiums. It’s a dove flying around a paper crane. Hope around hope. It’s on their right wrist.

“We will prevail, my brother,” Minho promised him.

“And we will walk together to our podiums,” Felix completed.

 

That is the story of why Hellevator and its routine comes so easily to him. He already tasted the darkness of despair and the purple-tinted pain of overworking, of bone-cold exhaustion and chill that snuck into ears and marrow. He ate the bitter fruit that is failure too many times, the taste like bitter melons at new year, swallowing seeds whole in defiance and he had not break. He will keep running. Run until he can forget it all.

Woojin advised him not to land the quad flip before he can master the Lutz, but he has to. Knows that he can but he’s just not doing something right. This can’t be his limit.

Minho drifts backwards. He will prevail. Run until he can’t no more. Escape out of the dark tunnels. See the white snow. Take a step. Jump.

He executes a shaky, not-really quadruple flip, but he’s going somewhere. He didn’t fall. He stayed standing. The adrenaline of prevailing fills him up, waiting to tip him over. He skips and lands toe loops in quick successions, giddy with accomplishment.

There is someone watching him, slacked-jaw. He doesn’t know, too immersed in going over the routine once more. Once more. He needs to get this.

It is 5 am in the morning but Lee Minho is strangely energised. Happiness is a strange driving force.

 

Han Jisung decides on a whim to come very early to training, because Hyunjin had gone off already for his own training, at fucking 4 am and Changbin is under house arrest for overtraining himself, nearly tearing something yesterday. He has a key to the tink. The coach will understand. Jisung is very adamant on winning things.

Also he needs to secure the big rink that is always hogged by that one ice skater, as the hockey players, some more bitter than others, mutter to him. Normally coach fends the skaters off for the sure-sure speed skaters to come on and train. It’s like 5. Nobody is awake at 5 except for Jisung and Hyunjin.

He is, of course, as always, proven wrong.

There is someone there, already skating maniacally, music blasting and skates slicing the ice floor into splinters and shards of broken ice bits. The swear words are on his tongue, because he’s here to train, how dare this even more dedicated asshole one-up him -

The familiar tune of Hellevator plays and he skids to a sudden stop, nearly biting his tongue. Why is his music here? Is this the skater friend? How many friends does Felix Lee have?

“I’m on a hellevator!” booms loudly around the ice and Jisung is presently reminded of why he does a sport that doesn’t require obligatory music accompaniment. Imagine if Hellevator 27.0 comes out at the next Winter Olympic. That is a dystopia to imagine.

The skater rounds the ice, throws himself in a well-practiced jump, landing stably and elegantly, with much more class and sophistication a meagre speed skater like him will never achieve.

“God that’s so-” he’s interrupted by a loud “LEE GET THE FUCK OFF THE ICE OR I’LL BREAK YOUR FUCKING LEGS!”

The skater stops spinning, throwing his gloved hands up in the air.

“IT’S 5 AM! DO YOU EVEN SLEEP?!” He shrieks back, grace and elegance all but dissipated, just a sweaty man-boy on knife shoes on the ice, amazed that his coach found him sneaking out of bed to go practice his skating tricks and Jisung is just a little bit endeared.

Just a tad.

The fact that he skated so well to Hellevator, Jisung’s music child in the course of one night may play some part of it, but Jisung is barely awake at 5 am and he needs the adrenaline from skating to wake him up. He doesn’t have the luxury of sleep to make informed decisions about his feelings this early in the morning.

Jisung blinks and he’s gone, only vague whines and complaints about blatant favouritism. He’s not thinking of the soft pinking brown hair the skater has. What a ridiculous idea.

“No, practice, go away bad thoughts,” he slaps his face, trying to get away from the whispers of ‘How about you just follow him and introduce yourself’ and ‘can I afford to make new friends on a tight training schedule for the Olympics Games’.

“Practice,” Jisung steels himself, “practice.”

 

“Oi, Minnie,” Woojin leans over to close the door from the driver’s seat, face usually reticent but also a bit resigned, “good job on landing those quads.”

Minho rocks from heel to toe, not wanting to voice out the obvious. He especially enjoys it when he’s right and he gets to hear the admission of falsities on other’s tongues.

“You may do as you deem fit in the qualifiers,” his coach sighs and endures ten seconds of Minho whooping and tapdancing on the wet road in front of another ice rink, jostling his handbag full of nice Japanese foods for the suffering ice dancers. It’s a Treat Fellow Ice Dancers day. Maybe he can swing by and meet Felix and Hyunjin after he’s worshipped and praised by the children inside.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying I’m right,” he jeers, grin stretching his mouth wide in an unnatural distortion of a smile. “Praise me and my spite.”

“I’m not praising your spite,” Woojin shakes his head, “but I’m praising your drive. Also your music. You’ve done well so far, despite adding another quad at my advice of don’t. A bit more. You’re nearly there.”

“Of course I’m nearly there,” Minho tips his chin to the sky, “where else would I be?”

“Just go inside, you narcissistic asshole,” Woojin slams the door shut, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

(As expected, the children loved it. Kim Yugyeom and his partner, that amazingly talented Japanese skater who they managed to snag out of Japan’s spindly fingers, Momo Hirai, asked him if he’s okay with them dedicating an entire routine for him. He had to reject, refuse and turn down many dedications of routine to him, the poor things suffering on the ice rink that is too shabby. Maybe he can switch tomorrow. Maybe. He’s good so far. It’s very unorthodox to change things last minute, but Minho is Minho and he is Korea’s number one ice skating son and also Korea’s number one unpredictable factor at major sporting events.

“I’ll win. There’s no way I can’t win,” he closes his fist.

 

Hyunjin didn’t mind him crashing their little picnic date as well, chilling on the halfpipe training area, feet dangling from the starting point. Maybe because seeing Felix happy made everyone happy, or something of that nature. Minho didn’t know for sure. Felix was describing, with quick hands moving everywhere, about this new species of shark scientists found at the bottom of the ocean, Korean spilling with ease. He grabbed Minho’s hands and Hyunjin’s hands and beamed at some point, eyes disappearing.

 _This is why I skate,_ Minho’s reminded, as Hyunjin sported a similar expression on his face, albeit more smitten and more ‘I would die for you if you ask me to.’

They’ll be okay. They’ll bring back medals for the motherland.)

 

“You can’t use it yet,” the coach crosses his arms and stares at Minho, brows too thinly trimmed that they merge into one impressive monobrow. “We’re not done skating.”

“Look,” he closes his eyes, “we agree on rotational 4-hour block. I’m only getting 90 minutes and less nowadays. It’s unfair for the figure skating team.”

He really hopes there isn’t some rubbish about how the speed skaters will bring all the pride and joy to South Korea while he’s just one measly skater who couldn’t even win a bronze last Olympic.

“We have a higher chance of winning,” the coach insists, “and-”

“Bull-fucking-shit,” he shoots back, adopting the same stance, but with his skates dangling dangerously in his grip, “you got no medal in the men’s team. Here you are with the men’s team. If it was the female team I would understand, but if you’re comparing medal successes, I have a higher chance of getting a medal than your boys can. By your logic, I should get the rink.”

A boy who’s sitting by the sidelines approaches them with caution in his eyes, eyes wide like he just got caught between two cannons and he’d rather have no cannon going off in his face.

“Uh coach, I haven’t been on the-”

His sentence is cut short by the coach sneering down at Minho, all yellow teeth and garlicy breath.

“Look, ballerina,” it meant to hurt, the implication of femininity. Minho wants to scoff. How ludicrous. “We are better funded and we have more skaters who are at a better skillset than you, so we get more practice time. 90 minutes is plenty of time for you to twirl and spin in the sequin suits you wear.”

Before Minho can raise a hand to slap him or stab him in the eye with his skates, the other boy furrows his brow. 90 minutes is a deplorable amount of time even for an amateur skater to even get anything done. He’s an Olympic-level athlete who should be allowed minimal 120 minutes to practice his routine. This line of reasoning is rubbish. How will figure skating progress if he doesn’t get to even fucking skate?

“That is an absurd number of time to get anything right,” the boy next to him states, disbelief in his voice, “can you even do shit in 90 minutes?”

“Han, go back out onto the ice,” the coach admonishes, tossing his head. Leave us, it’s trying to say. Minho is holding himself back, he is trying, to not sneer. Trying very hard.

“I’ve been sitting for 2 hours. Go back out where?” Han bounces the question back. “Onto the ice that you barely let me skate on?”

“Whoop, there it is,” Minho mutters and winks at Han as they share a mutual ‘I hate this guy so much’ glance. He’s almost in love with how salty and sure Han is. Just almost. Minho mouths ‘I’d kill him if it wasn’t for the laws of this land’ and Han grins back, all teeth and squishy squirrel cheeks.

“Han, we’ve talked about this,” the coach adopts a placating tone. It makes him want to throw up all over the ice. “The weaker skaters need more time.”

“That’s not what you told me yesterday when you told ten other guys that I’m lacking behind on time and techniques. Maybe if you act out on your words, I’ll be a better athlete,” Han takes a step forward, Minho cheering him on in the back with unabashed joy, “but you’re not and you’re hindering 3 sports from getting their rightly-deserved medals. Move, before I decide to scrape you out of the way with my skates.”

The coach freezes and buffers in real life, trying to salvage what’s left of his reputation, but Han just sidesteps him like the marvellous being that he is. The speed skaters on the ice communicate via like fast ice skipping or some other such codes that Minho doesn’t speak, but they all file in a line and skate off, shooting variations of finger guns, winks, obscene facial contortions and various meme and vine references that he doesn’t get.

Han doesn’t get on the ice, standing slightly in front of Minho, like he’s afraid his teammates might hurt him or his coach might decide to return in another episode of Um Actually Speed Skating Is The Only Sport In The Winter Olympic. Minho appreciates the sentiments, but he’d appreciate it more if Han get to skate too.

So he shoves Han forward, bending down to put on his skates.

Han stumbles and turns around, eyes confused. Like he’s done no wrong and he’s being punished for unjust wrongs.

It makes Minho want to hug him, but he has an Olympic to train for and all the time afterwards to hug all the speed skaters he wants. He gets up on his skates, towering over Han and smoothly glides onto the ice.

“You said you haven’t practice and neither have I. It’s a big rink. So practice.”

Han doesn’t wait to be told twice. He slips on his own skates and slides quickly onto the ice, protective be damned, and crouches into the starting position for the 500 m mark. Minho backs into the wall, trying to place his phone where it wouldn’t smash onto the cold, hard and wet ice floor and monitoring. The form looks good. There is nothing unsafe about that starting position. He seems decent for a ‘weak’ skater.

“Can you time me?” Han doesn’t turn his head. Minho fumbles and pulls up his timer and tries to channel the sports announcer in him.

“On your mark, get set,” Han lowers, “go!”

 

The speed skating coach is a fucking liar and Lee Minho would willingly be at the board meeting where the complaints would be held to expose the hell out of his lies. Han isn’t slow, nor is he a weak skater.

He gunned 500m faster than the cohort of the already departed skaters that Minho is appalled there isn’t more time and attention dedicated for him. God why hadn’t he been in any Olympic games? Why is he not more well-known?

“You’re slow, my ass,” Minho calls out across the line as Han circles back to him, no sweat visible, wringing out his wrists. “You’re a weak skater, my sizeable collection of bundles.”

“Bundles?” Han echoes, eyebrows going up. “You collect bundles?”

“I’m complimenting you on your skills and all you heard was ‘I own bundles’?”

“Actually,” Han grins, “I heard ‘I collect many bundles.’ How many do you have?”

“If you think I count, then you are very right,” Minho taps his left cheek with a gloved hand, brows scrunching, “maybe like 10 or so right now.”

Han looks about to ask more when Minho shouts over him “Why are you being sidelined from the rest of your team even though you’re obviously medal material?”

“That rhymes,” Han notices and Minho gives him a long-suffering look like ‘really’, “and the answer is easy.”

He looks at Minho. Minho does not know what the answer is. Thus it is not easy.

“You look at me like I know the answer,” Minho slowly explains, “but I don’t. I don’t even know who you are, except that you are very fast, your ass is great and your coach is shitty.”

“I can’t afford a private coach. There aren’t enough sponsors for me to train privately outside of the national team,” Han shrugs, “thank you for noticing all those things, I try very hard to rid myself of the last.”

“How are you not,” Minho doesn’t understand, he genuinely cannot fathom how, “crowded and selecting from the endless pool of sponsors coming your way? I just…don’t understand. How is that not a thing?”

“Not charming enough, not exposed enough to top tier competitions, not enough money to enter those competitions, funds from the government unevenly allocated to everyone else and I get scraps,” Han lists, nonchalant, like he accepted this fact and looking to move on. “It’s just how things are.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Minho waves a hand, “you’re plenty charming. But funds I get. I understand your funding troubles very much. I, too, am in the same boat. I too, hope to exploit the financial benefit of winning a medal so I can build another rink where my fellow ice dancers and I can train at. Also the hockey team. I got a friend in there who’s suffering so much, the poor dear, hockey is another tragedy altogether.”

Han nods, sharp eyes noticing everything Minho does. It’s a bit unnerving, like the first time he met Woojin and they had that little stare off, his blonde, chicken-loving, motherlike-nagging coach who knew from the minute that he’s inspecting Minho, everything that he was doing wrong or right, his moral compass, who he would rescue in a fire in his friend group and what he was thinking of wearing that afternoon to a skating gala. It’s also like Felix, who occasionally stares into his soul and just knows things.

That or Minho is very transparent. Either way, he does not appreciate being stared and figured out. He’s better at verbalising things. This staring thing does not cut it for him. What if he’s giving signs he’s a serial murderer?

“You look like you have a plan of action,” Han hums.

Minho clutches a hand over his chest, gasping loudly.

“You read my mind, my good and true dear. Why, we are going to overthrow prejudices and subvert all of the expectations weighing on us,” he winks, “the first step is you coming in to train with me. 90 minutes everyday is a shit amount, but it’ll build on top of what you have already. Similarly, I can come in to your private training sessions. We’ll figure out how to not bump into each other, but that’s only a problem of logistics. The real problem is I don’t know how to sync up schedules without a few text messages, screaming matches over the phone and in real life and mediated brunches, so however and whenever you choose to give your number to me to organise that is up to you.”

Han’s gasp is so soft Minho almost missed it.

“Maybe later,” the boy tells him, “maybe later.”

Minho shrugs, not caring either way. His priority is to win first, date second. Whatever space they choose to tread in between this and that is entirely up to them. Right now though, he has to skate. He puts Hellevator on loop, skating out to the centre, in his starting position.

Han watches, silent. Anticipating.

Minho has to put on a good show. After all, he’s Korea’s favourite skating son.

 

He lands an even more successful quad flip and he can see it, the podium, the possible gold. The burn in his calves is settling in, but he has only a few more spins and loops to finish. A bit more. The song is drawing to an end.

He tucks himself in and spins outward to a splendid finish, finger pointing up beyond the roof, beyond the sky. He’s nearly out of the hellevator. He can see the light.

Han claps and whoops for him, hopping and skipping on his skates. Minho bows extravagantly, throwing kisses at his imagined audience. He skates to Han, quirking an eyebrow.

“So how was that?”

“Breathtaking,” Han breathes, like he hasn’t seen art before and this is the best art he came across in his entire life. “You skate like you’re swimming in water. Wow. That. Wow. What are words. I don’t know a language.”

“Flattering, squirrel boy,” Minho reaches for his phone in Han’s grip, “but do you think it’s medal worthy?”

“I feel like you can tap dance across the ice and they’ll give you a medal for it.”

“That’s cute, darling, but I need feedback.”

“The last jump thingy, don’t know what it’s called,” Han taps the corner of his mouth, considering, “your landing was a bit sloppy. I think you’re trying too much. You’re tensing. I got a couple of friends who dance and they’re always like ‘don’t tense, that’s bad’, so maybe that’s something you could look at.”

Minho pats his stomach and sides. He was tensing. It must’ve been obvious enough for someone outside of figure skating to notice it. God, he should be less nervous.

Before he can thank Han, Woojin’s voice screeches at him from the change room.

“OI SHITHEAD, YOU’RE NOT MEANT TO BE ON THIS RINK! OFF, RIGHT NOW!”

“I’M COMING!” He screams back. Han isn’t even phased. He looks all shades of amused, bending to look at Minho’s wrist.

“Felix has the same tattoo,” he points out.

“Yeah we got it together,” he lifts his wrist up to show his and Felix’s shared dove, “a permanent memento of our shared breakthrough of depression.”

“Tell him I said hi,” Han inclines his head and starts to skate off, “and you’re doing my song a lot more justice than it deserves.”

“Who are you though?” Minho grasps at thin air as Han skates away, clear laughter in the chilly air.

“Han Jisung,” Jisung stops at the exit, turning to flash him a look, “see you later, Korea’s favourite skating son.”

Woojin emerges and curses at him some more to ‘fuck off the ice you leech, Chan is trying to get on for ages, he spammed my phone for a good ten minutes of sad puppy videos’.

“God he was so cute,” Minho allows himself to moon, processing everything at last.

Then.

“SHIT HE SANG THE SONG?”

(Felix’s eyes have this little glint when Minho asks for Jisung’s number, but he never divulge that line of thought he had. Minho’s first instinct when he came into possession of the number was to simultaneously challenge Jisung to a duel on the ice and also to thank him for the wonderful tune of depression and death of Hellevator.

Jisung calls him right after but he doesn’t say much, just laughs over the phone, at his messages or him, Minho doesn’t know, but it’s a good sound, Jisung laughing. He’d like to hear it more.)

 

Things just fall into places, as they do with everything else.

Jisung and Minho train on the ice together, with minimal collision and minimal flirting bar their first meeting, Jisung getting faster and faster at an alarmingly welcomed rate and Minho relaxing and less tense with every flip he takes off.

Woojin is there to supervise, pointing out the shaky start offs and the rotations, eyes focused on him at all times. The instructions are more and more specific, more narrowed down to where things are going wrong, where he can fix his transition, which loops he should take out altogether.

Jisung is there, silently surpassing his previous time. One second at a time. Another second faster. Another second faster.

Off the ice and outside of practice time though, everything is fair game. Coffee is fair game. Doing illegal flips on the ice is fair game. Bumping shoulders when they skate near each other is fair game.

And recently, asking each other to their respective places for dinner is fair game.

 

(“You should see them,” Woojin purses his lips, “it’s disgustingly wholesome that I want them to pair skate.”

“Interesting imagery,” Chan points a chopstick at him, “but Minho would drop Jisung. For sure.”

“Felix had been replaced with Jisung, and do you know what the blonde baby said when I told him that?” Woojin taps the table with his soup spoon. “I’m glad Minho-hyung is making friends and enjoying life outside of figure skating. Plus Jisung is a good guy. I approve.”

“I approve too. The hockey team ships it. The speed skaters ship it. I think the ice dancers heard about it and they’re shipping it too. Yugyeom sent me a photo of Minho visiting them last week and getting a call from Jisung and he’s just,” Chan stops and adopts a smitten smile, all embarrassed edges and simpering eyes, “that.”

“Eloquent, captain, very eloquent,” Woojin takes a quick swig of his wine, “I hope Minho gets it together by this Friday. Pyongchang is in two weeks.”

“I hope Jisung makes it this Friday. They have to cut half the skaters and he’s massively disadvantaged compare to everyone else. Really hope he pulls through. He’s such a talented skater,” Chan muses, “it’s a shame the disadvantaged are the most talented.”

“Bang, you’ll pull through. You win, medal or not,” Woojin taps the back of Chan’s hand on the table, curled over a beer cap.

“I hope so,” Chan looks down at his rice.

“I know so. Look up instead of down. Be like Minho. You’re strong. You have all the tools necessary to win.”

“I should be like Minho, huh,” Chan laughs, tipping his head up, “up is a great direction.”

“The best direction,” Woojin confirms, “the only direction.”

“I wanna toast to that,” Chan picks up his glass and taps it gently with Woojin’s, “to looking up.”

“To hard work paying off. To being winners,” Woojin taps back, “to being brave.”)

 

Jisung is washing the dishes when Minho snaps his head up, pointing his glove at the boy’s face.

“Your qualifier’s in two days.”

Jisung only hums in response, nonchalant, but there’s an edge of nervousness in there and Minho hadn’t spent the last three weeks unpacking this seemingly held-together man for naught. He can pick up nuances now, cracks in the crevices that scream ‘I’m human too!’ in Jisung. It’s beautiful and skaters love beautiful things. Maybe that’s why he’s so drawn to Han Jisung. He looks older in the setting sun, warm brown skin like sultry honey, hard edges of the athlete Han Jisung no longer there, only Jisungie the film maniac, lover of all things squirrels and one filial son to his mother. The guy who willingly snuck into a closed rink to skate with Minho, whizzing around the ice and giggling as Minho twirled and fell, skidding across the ice.

They might’ve laid on the ice floor for a few seconds, worn out from waking up so early regularly and from the bone-exhausted practice. Their breaths were leaving their lungs puff by puff of coiled vapours, lingering then dissolving.

Jisung didn’t say anything. It was too cold to say anything anyway, both of them too tired, but he turned to Minho, looked at him. Really looked at him.

Minho didn’t feel the need to say anything as well. Sometimes silence speaks a lot. Sometimes silence can say more than what a simple phrase can convey. Minho let them both conjecture what was said in the silence. Whatever will be, will be.

But back in the present, Jisung is all the murky shades of nervousness and barely holding onto anything. Minho debates, uncertain of whether his next actions will speak more words than glances can do.

But Felix, his dear Felix, he patched up with only his arms and himself and he put Hyunjin back together too, like this. Minho just have a penchant to put others back together. It makes him more whole.

“Jisungie,” he whispers, too fearful of the tension in the kitchen, “can I hold you?”

Jisung looks close to breaking, lips trembling. He nods.

Minho lets go of everything and just hold Jisung, letting the boy clutch him tight and tighter, until there’s no space left yet there is so much space for them to come closer together and amalgamate into one single existence. He can feel the cracks slowly mending, still there, existing, but slowly mending. Maybe Minho’s magic is on the ice and also in mending cracks in people. Who knows?

He buries his nose in Jisung’s hair, breathing in sweat and shampoo hastily thrown on before another run, another train ride to a different city to train, another fitness circuit. There is so much fierceness held together in this boy that it’s astounding how he’s holding together and how he’s just one single body harbouring all these different facets of Han Jisung. Minho draws him in closer, wanting to never part.

“You’ve got me,” he whispers, wanting to tattoo the words onto skin and unto being. Hoping that all the things he fails to say will be communicated to Jisung. Words fail him, but everything else will not.

 

“Han Jisung!” Felix waves at him, hand entwined with Hyunjin. “My pride and joy!”

“Bit louder so the guy next to you can hear it!” Jisung shouts back and enjoys a brief moment of sadistic glee as Hyunjin throws a padded jacket over Felix’s head and pulls the blonde to him, mouth no doubt ranting at how Jisung is a shit friend and he’s trying to steal Felix from him. That is rubbish. They all met weirdly, at some point when they were all 12, all doing different sports, pointing fingers and laughing at each other falling face first into the ice and snow, but here they are, turning 18 one after another, still together, closer with every passing day.

I’m winning for them. I’m going to Pyongchang with the stupid couple. He curls his fingers into his palm, jabbing blunt nails into calloused skin.

“Aish,” he hears, “why are you hurting yourself now?”

“Minnie,” he looks up as Minho inspects him, brown eyes worried and pinched half shut. He looks worn out, insisting that he had to monitor Jisung throughout the course of yesterday and last night, paranoid that he would sneak out to practice when Minho had fallen asleep. Jisung actually had gotten the most amount of sleep for weeks and woke up refreshed. There was a bit of a whining sesh when Minho couldn’t get his hair to stay down in front of the mirror today, pouting at his reflection in the mirror, slumping.

“What are you doing,” Jisung had asked him when he started tearing up about how his hair was ugly and no one would love him.

Minho was a mess and a half, all brown hair flecked with black, dry with split ends, curls and strands poking in whichever direction they chose, face stained off-purple and blue and jaundice yellow. Sleep deprived Minho is always ugly, but Jisung was indescribably fond that he got to see Minho at his literal worst, crying about how he’s ugly to his reflection to the mirror, that he stood for a few moments, staring, something like a smile on his mouth.

He’s ugly and he’s beautiful and Jisung hoped silences speak more than words and dances speak more than songs, because he had no words to offer up to Minho, but he had all the silence to, stretches of it dancing on the bathroom walls.

“Ha ha, funny,” Minho scowled at him and slammed the door shut, “go change, let me wallow in my miseries for a bit more.”

He let out a small chuckle at the little curses inside, mostly Minho reprimanding his skin for not doing what it’s supposed to do.

He almost forgot about the qualifiers. But Minho in front of him, face powdered and perfected, lips pursed, reminds him that there is another obstacle until he’s there to skate for his home country.

“I hope you had fun laughing at me throughout the day,” Minho crosses his arms, “and stop hurting yourself. Your palms did nothing to you.”

“But I’m nervous,” he hears himself whine, “can I have a half-ass hug before I go on?”

Minho squints. Decides that he’s probably not lying. Stands on tiptoes so that they can be a mess of limbs and skin wrapping around each other, not letting go.

“Now win,” Minho lets go, “look ahead. Then up.”

“Okay,” he whispers, believing every word, “you’ve got me.”

“I do,” Minho holds his gaze, “I truly do.”

 

He is free and he skates, skates like he’s flying and speeds past the finish line, just before Jung Sewoon.

The stand explodes and he hears people telling someone to stop, but there is Minho running towards him and onto him, slamming him onto the ice. Jisung rolls them on the ice, laughing as Minho furiously punches him and grabbing his face, warm fingers melting ice, cold melted ice and warm skin on his jaw, laughing.

“You did it, Sungie. You did it.”

“I did it,” he smiles back, eyes scrunched shut, “I did it.”

 

The speed skating coach tries to approach Jisung, in apologies or reconciliation, but Woojin drags him away, ready to rant about blatant discrimination between students. Minho and Jisung stay stubbornly on the ice and Felix at some point slides in Minho’s skates.

Minho has secured skates on his feet and they’re both skating idly around the ice. Jeongin and Chan are outside, mingling with Seungmin who’s bundled up to last twenty winters and a day without the sun, most likely Changbin’s handiwork. There is Hyunjin playing some music over the speakers and Minho occasionally twirling to the beats, pirouetting on the ice to the mellow tones of Memories by Cats.

“You know what we should do?” Minho turns to Jisung, skating backwards. “Pair skating.”

Jisung blinks once, then twice, the smile dropping off his face very quickly.

“I can’t lift more than 20 kg,” he denies quickly, “and your arms are too thin to support my weight.”

“Let’s try anyway,” Minho tugs on Jisung’s sleeve, all bright-eyed smiles and white teeth, “it’ll be fun.”

“I’m trusting you not to break me, the Korean representative of speed skating,” he warns as he skates back and away from Minho.

He shouldn’t have trusted the figure skater so easily, but who can honestly say no to Lee Minho, Korea’s favourite skating son?

Not him. He’s one whipped and gone bastard.

He doesn’t know how this work though and Minho is screeching at him to ‘come at me, asshole’ at the top of his lungs and he’s skating, he’s moderately skating towards Minho, wary of velocity and aerodynamics. He jumps and Minho catches him, seemingly effortless even though they’ve done this for a total of no time before this, he’s slowly rising up, there’s My heart will go on playing in the background, maybe this will work.

“Oh nope,” he hears and bounces away from Minho who’s letting go.

They’re sprawled on the ice, panting, Jisung more tired from this than when he was skating to secure a spot in the national team representing Korea. Minho is laughing and snorting down where he is, dying slowly from hysteria. Jisung pulls himself into a squat and hovers over Minho, smiling a little at the uneven pink flushes on the other boy’s face, pink on brown, like an angel fallen onto the ice.

Minho opens his eyes, still grinning and pulls himself up, complaining about his falling down rates and how it went up a lot ever since he met Jisung. They’re skating like the pair skate didn’t utterly flop as it had, Hellevator now starting to play.

“Watch me fly, yeah?” Minho holds his gaze.

“Of course,” he responds, “always. You’ve got me.”

Even though he had seen the same routine many countless times before, there’s something new that Minho inserts every time and it never ceases to take his breath away. He turns and spins and flips across the ice, all the frozen expanse his kingdom, the sole ruler passing by and regulating all of the kingdom to bend under his will.

He’s approaching that one tense flip that’s been bothering collectively all of the friends in their stray kids uwu group chat, the entire apartment block, Woojin the coach, Jisung and more so Minho. Minho looks at him, eyes blazing brown and red, tips his head up and closes his eyes.

Jisung doesn’t know why he is worried. Minho will succeed.

As he always had. Always will. Because it’s Lee Minho and he plays to win, all the time.

The take off is perfection and he spins in the air, landing so cleanly it makes almost no sound. Jisung skates to him, no sound leaving him except an ugly primal sound of ‘yes yes yes’ on his tongue and they’re falling onto each other again, onto the ice and falling through air.

“I did it! I did it!” Minho shrieks as he falls, laughing.

“You did it, you did it,” Jisung joins him, both falling and bruising each other, but that’s okay. Sometimes noises speak just as well as silences.

**Author's Note:**

> A mess and a half but asdfghjkloiuytdsdcvbnm I love skating please cry about skating with me
> 
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